Navigating all of the wedding and party planning themes, ideas and DIY projects out there is a bit daunting. There are so many great ideas in magazines and online that I’m afraid I might just go completely mad when it comes to my wedding. I don’t want to have a hodgepodge of things. I want cohesion. The only way I can think to handle the massive amount of information out there is to come up with a general concept or theme for my wedding.

No, I don’t want a theme wedding! But I need some parameters. Its a lot like decorating your home. You need to come up with the overall look you want and then use that as a way to edit yourself. So I am gradually trying to formulate a visual aesthetic for my big ass party (aka wedding).

One thing that I am really into right now is watercolor and ombre treatments. I love the subtlety of watercolors and how light and airy ombre can feel. I played around with this kind of look for our wedding website…kind of liking what I did although I think it needs some refining.

Anyway, here are some great elements that fall into the watercolor/ombre category.

Ombre Napkins

These are gorgeous! Ombre can be a bit overwhelming if the color gradation is too contrasty. This is just the right amount of color variation.

Via OnceWed

Ombre Escort Cards

I’m not planning on assigned seating, but I do love these cards. And they would be so easy to make!

Via OnceWed

Ombre Watercolor Invites

Straight from the new Martha Stewart Weddings issue! I think this example uses a pink that is a bit too dark (sorry Martha), but I think this idea would work really beautifully with a lighter color.

From Martha Stewart Weddings

Ombre Cake

Not sure if I’m gonna go with the typical buttercream of fondant wedding cake. But these sure are nice to look at!

From Martha Stewart Weddings

Watercolor Lettering

I love these watercolor treatments created by Love, Jenna and Swiss Cottage Designs. So so pretty!

From Swiss Cottage Designs

So I think it is safe to say that I need to get my booty to the art supply store and start practicing my watercolor skills. Oh and I need to learn calligraphy too…but that’s another post.

About a year ago I bought some ginger jars at Pearl River Mart in Manhattan. I think they were about $10 each. And recently after seeing some lamps on ebay with similar ginger jar bases (selling for a few hundred dollars!) I decided to make my own cheap-o version.

(Both of these lamp sets are on ebay for $300!)

This was my first time ever making a lamp and, what I learned from the experience is that making a lamp is super easy and we should all be doing it all of the time! I went down to Lowes and bought a “lamp kit” for about $10. It contained a harp for the lamp shade, a cord and a socket. Within a few minutes my lamp was working. All I had to do was connect a couple of wires and glue down the harp and base to the vase!

What You Will Need

• A lamp base (anything you can run a wire through)
• A lamp kit (containing a socket, cord and harp)
• A phillips head screwdriver
• Glue (type of glue depends on what your base is made of). Check out ThisToThat.com for help picking the right adhesive

Step By Step Directions*

1) Run the cord through your base. Luckily my vase is full of holes, so I just used on at the bottom. If your base doesn’t have a hole you can drill one. Even if its ceramic, you can easily drill a hole by using a ceramic drill bit (available at any hardware store).

2) Connect the cord wires to the lamp socket. First I had to twist off the bottom of the socket. Next I wrapped the exposed end of the wires around the designated screws on the base and tightened them. Once I reattached the bottom of the socket I was pretty much done!

3. Glue the harp base and socket to your base. Then you are ready to attach your lamp shade!

*Just a quick FYI – a lamp kit will have instructions on it as well.

(Learn how they did this at ShoeString Pavillion)

Or imagine how much cooler a plain lacquer tray would be if you lined the inside of it with contact paper.

Or for that matter, what about bookshelves?

What are your ideas?

And for a good selection of contact paper, check out these two sites: ChicShelfPaper.com & Hammocksandhightea.com

We have been in our new place for a month now and we are still very much in the process of setting up everything. The living room, after much debate (and thanks for all your votes!) is painted a solid gray BUT will have molding added in the next few weeks. I’ll be sure to share the finished room once its ready.

Now I’ll introduce you to our kitchen. So far, I have painted it and we have made it functional. But I think now is a good time to take a step back and figure out how to take this room to the next level. Right now it looks like a half-baked space (which it is). I’d like it to feel more intentional. The foundation is there, I think we just need to hone in on some details and refine the color palette a little bit.

The Paint Color

I LOVE the color we painted this room. It is Benjamin Moore Lido Green. Its a soft green with a touch of blue, and it works really well with warm colors. I actually love how it looks with reds and oranges! So the good news is that the walls look great.

Work Station

I’m really proud of how I was able to re purpose an old IKEA desk from our old place and turn it into extra counter space in our kitchen. It was certainly a moment of genius when I put 2 and 2 together. But enough bragging, lets be honest. While the skirt on the table creates a great hiding space for things like cat food bags, I have to admit that it is being held up by the shoddiest velcro job EVER! It could definitely use a refresh.  And the shelf above the workspace has so much potential for greatness, but right now its just kind of blah. Here is what I’d like to change:

Shelf: Some functional bookends is probably all it would take to make this shelf look and function better. (Skribent Bookend from IKEA $4.99)

Table Top: I want to add a butcher block since the desk surface isn’t ideal for the kitchen. I think a bread box would also help with storage and keeping the space clear. (Polder Chrome Bread Box from Bed Bath & Beyond $29.99, Exklusivt Butcher Block from IKEA $24.99)

Table Skirt: Instead of the dark gray, I like this fabric from IKEA. I think it would have a fresher look. (Burta Ruta Fabric from IKEA $8.99 a yard)

Stove Area

This area is already pretty cute (if I do say so myself). I like the shelves we installed and the pot hanger. The window more than anything  could use some work…

Wall Shelves: I just love the way orange looks against the Lido Green. So I think it would be really cool to get a great piece of cookware to display. This would be a bit of a splurge but its the kind of thing you can keep forever. ( “My First Staub” Round Cocotte 2.5 Qt through Zappos $99.99)

Window: This window gets a great amount of light, but the cheap-o blinds we got are not really cutting it. Ever since I read Little Green Notebook’s guide to making roman shades from cheap blinds I’ve been dying to try it. I’d like to attempt something that will end up looking like the shades pictured above. Except the ribbon trim should be a bright, bold color. (Ribbon Roman Shade from Pottery Barn starting at $71)

Window Part 2: This window poses an additional challenge because it faces our neighbors. The bottom line is that I need to be able to go to the fridge late at night and not worry about someone seeing me in my underwear. This window decal by Emma Jeffs would be a great solution. Its a bit on the pricey side though, so I might try to come up with a DIY alternative. (Emma Jeffs White Moroccan Tile Adhesive Film through Design Public $76)

The Floors

These floors are cheeeeaaaaapppp! And they like to show every single scuff mark and every stain. They immediately get dirty and they like to stay looking dirty. In short, this floor is not a team player.

Flor Tiles: My solution is a simple rug made from durable (fabric) Flor Tiles. I’ve never really considered rugs a great idea in the kitchen, but this situation is somewhat serious. And I remember a really cool kitchen featured in Domino that had Flor tiles covering the entire kitchen floor (see below). I probably won’t go that far, but I think an area rug would be a nice relief from this awful floor. (Take A Ribbing Flor Tile in Black $11.90)

The Fridge

This area looks pretty junky. We need to use it for storage, and I think I had the right idea with the basket, but it would be nice not have all our cereal boxes on display.

Top of Refrigerator Storage: I think more baskets is the answer. Maybe our cereal will peek out the top, but at least it will be somewhat organized. (Byholma Basket from IKEA $15.99)

New Lighting Solution: Right now, we have a table lamp on our fridge. All it does is take up space and look awkward. I want to get rid of this lamp and install a pendant light to replace our ugly overhead fixture.  (Fado Pendant Light from IKEA $39.99)

We made it through our move and we have sore muscles and bruises to prove it! Moving it turns out really sucks. Of course I already knew that but I think I forgot how bad it really is. So I need to live here at least long enough for the past week to fade in my memory. Our building is full of old Russian ladies who love to sit outside the front entrance in a long line. I think I might end up becoming one of them because I will refuse to move ever again. But then on the other hand, decorating a new apartment might just make moving worth it.

To introduce you to my new place I made a floor plan so you can see what the space is like. (Btw to do this I used a great site called FloorPlanner.com.) You enter the apartment through a long hall. On the right are a couple of closets, the kitchen, another closet and the bathroom. At the end of the hall is the living room and right off of that is the bedroom/office.

The obvious benefits of this apartment are that it is an actual one bedroom, gets a ton of natural light (I never knew it was so bright at 5am), is on the corner of the top floor so we are isolated from neighbors and it has great pre-war details. Oh, and also the bathtub is giant!

The only major downside so far is that we are lacking closet space. This is typical of pre-war apartments. I don’t know what people did with their stuff back then, but they certainly weren’t putting it in closets. This is posing a bit of a problem, but I think with some clever management we can make it work.

As we settle into our apartment I plan to chronicle our successes and failures (and there have already been a few). Most of our place is still in disarray, so the first space I’ll share with you is our hallway.

Even before we moved in I decided that I wanted to use the long wall in the hallway to store our books. To do this, we bought four wall-mounted IKEA shelves. My boyfriend was a little skeptical of this idea, but once we installed the shelving and started putting our books up I think we were both excited and pleased by the result.

The other idea I had was to use the hallway to display our myriad of wall art. I have a bit of a wall art addiction, so we have a ton of stuff. And this collection is even more superfluous in our new apartment. Our old place was built in the 1950′s and was basically just a plain box with no architectural details, so it needed a lot of decorative additions. Our new apartment has pre-war details everywhere. Most notably, our living room and bedroom have beautiful molding. Since the molding means there is already a geometric design decorating the walls, we don’t want to over do it with too much stuff of our own. So the hallway (which is sans molding) seemed like a good spot to feature our collection. I was also inspired by my recent trip to Europe to set up the wall in a casual salon style with the items filling the wall completely. I’m pretty happy with the result. The hallway is beginning to feel like a very cheerful way to enter our home.

Below are some photos of the hallway. It is still a work in progress, but I hope you enjoy seeing what we’ve come up with so far.

Our books are out of the way on this wall-mounted shelving.

The view coming out of the bathroom into the hall

I love the way we have arranged the images...and there is room for more!

And best of all, we inherited this hulk hogan light switch from the previous tenant.

Bunting is a trend I have seen all over the internet and for good reason. Its really cute! These flags/banners are a combination of kitschy and sweet, and they look especially nice outdoors. I had no idea what “bunting” was before, but apparently the term comes from the making of flags for the Royal Navy. Now it simply means any kind of decoration that includes flags or pieces of fabric attached to a string.

A Quick Bunting How-To

So now that we have the definition, lets take a look at how you create something like this.

Materials

• some cool fabrics (check out the fabric lots for sale on etsy)
• a rotary cutter (not sure what this is or how to use it, click here)
• a sewing machine
• a piece of cardboard.

Some Basic Instructions

1. First, use the cardboard to create a triangle template.
2. Then, use the rotary cutter to cut out triangles of fabric.
3. To connect them, you will need to have one long strip of fabric called bias tape. Creating the bias tape will probably require cutting several pieces of 2-inch wide fabric and then sewing them together into one long piece.
4. Once you have the bias tape, you fold down the edges (to hide the ragged cut edges), and then fold that in half over the triangles and sew it all together.

*For a full on How-To and more images, check out the one at Stitch.Rip.Repeat.

(Above Photos from Stitch.Rip.Repeat)

And Here Are Some Images To Get Us Inspired.

If there is one person that loves bunting its jewelry designer and stylist Cheri Messerli. Not only does she sell bunting-esque necklaces, she also used bunting in her wedding and in her home.

And there are tons of bunting examples on Etsy. For instance the store Sparkle Power  sells a “Vintage Flag Garland” for $26

Bunting and the World Cup seem to go hand in hand. You could make a paper one with all different flags or just your favorite team. (Someone needs to take this idea and run with it!)

This wedding featured on Style Me Pretty has some really cool bunting and also an awesome rock candy cake!

Bunting can be subtle too. Here is an example from Emersonmade

Scalloped bunting is another approach. This is from the Etsy shop MyFavoriteDress.

You can even make mini bunting! Here’s a how-to from How About Orange.

If there is one thing I could add to my apartment aside from more space it would be a fireplace. I don’t even care if it works, I just love the way a fireplace becomes the focal point of a room. More specifically I love the possibilities of a fireplace mantel for displaying stuff. There are so many striking ways to style them. When I recently took photos for Jessica and Will’s house tour, I fell in love with their funny little electric faux fireplace. What I liked was that it added an architectural feel to their dining room.

If you are like me and lack a fireplace, here are some ways to add one or at least a way to suggest one.

Buy A Mantel

Duh! There are tons of places where you can buy a mantel. They can vary in price, but I’ve seen wood mantels for under $200. Once you buy one, all you have to do is put it up against the wall and there you go!

Monticello Wood Mantel $183

Classique Wood Mantel $330

Gel and Electric Fireplaces

If you want to have a more realistic fireplace, then check out gel and electric options. To me, they feel a bit bulky for a New York apartment, but if fire (or fake fire) is a big incentive for adding a fireplace then these are worth a look.

Arched Contemporary Electric Fireplace $399

Vintage Mid-Century Electric Fireplace $400

Add A Wall Mounted Shelf

Some apartments and homes have areas that already suggest a fireplace. If you live in a pre-war apartment, you may not have a fireplace, but chances are you have a place where a fireplace used to be. Usually the wall juts out a few inches. To build off of this architectural element, you can add a wall mounted shelf to suggest a fireplace mantel. Sometimes this is all you need to do the trick.

Make One!

If you are feeling really ambitious and creative, you could build your own mantel. Here are links to some DIY projects.

Of course there is Wary-Meyer’s DIY Mantel

How to make a faux fireplace from a mirror frame.

How to make a faux fireplace out of stained plywood.

And the saga continues! As you might remember, a couple of weeks ago I made a curtain to hide the messy bookcase over our desks. So last weekend it was time to tackle the wall opposite to our desks. Historically this wall has always been a problem area…a magnet for the random junk that we had no where else to put. But now thanks to some ingenuity, we have made a vast improvement. What was once a wall of random shit is now a really functional work surface with enough added storage underneath to equal the size of a closet. Best of all, this cost nothing…that’s right NOTHING!

The table tops are made up of some old desks we had in our storage space. They are from IKEA and consist of two table tops and adjustable legs that you buy separately. We set up the tables to stand as tall as possible to ensure the maximum amount of storage underneath. Next, I took some old IKEA curtains that I had lying around and simply cut and hemmed one panel so that it would wrap around the table. I attached it with strips of velcro.

And Viola! We have a usable space! This is a huge improvement on the mix of stuff that was there before (a dusty exercise bike, old lamp shades, etc). And now we have a great work surface that is perfect at standing height. I have to thank my boyfriend Josh for his help with this project. It was actually more of a collaboration than anything else we have done in the apartment lately, and I think we are both really happy with the result. Teamwork!

Oh the IKEA Lack side table. Chances are you either have this table in your apartment or you know someone who does. At $7.99 each, these tables are hard to resist. And their clean and simple shape guarantee that they will fit in pretty much anywhere. As it turns out, the Lack side table has also served as the spring board for many DIY embellishments and upgrades. Here are some great examples I found plus my own hack at the very end of the list. Perhaps this will make you look twice at the humble Lack side table

Glass Book Top

http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/apartments/76111/ikea-remix

Grass Top

http://www.iso216.com/project/grass-table/

Eco Top

http://www.sunset.com/home/weekend-projects/easy-eco-table-00400000013251/

Desk Shelving

http://www.unplggd.com/unplggd/look/look-using-sidetables-as-shelves-065894

Mod Podge Top

http://cathiefilian.blogspot.com/2009/09/ikea-hack-lack-table-goes-modern.html

Lack Coffee Table Hack

http://www.instructables.com/id/Coffee-Table-Hack-of-IKEA-LACK/

Customized with Bamboo Veneer

http://www.elizabethannedesigns.com/living/2009/03/16/1900/

Memory Box Top

http://www.homebysunset.com/home_by_sunset/2007/10/making-memories.html

Two Tables Turned Into One (My Contribution)

I bought four Lack side tables instead of two and glued (with Liquid Nails) the feet of one table to the disassemble top of the other table. Now it has more of a box shape that reminds me of more expensive tables like West Elm’s Parsons Cube Side Table that sells for $149. My tables cost $16 each plus $3 for the Liquid Nails. Bam! Now, perhaps I will paint them? We’ll see..everything is looking a little dark.

If the thought of hacking away at IKEA stuff appeals to you, then be sure to check out the site IKEA HACKER. It’s completely dedicated to this type of thing.

No matter what our age or our budgets, there is one thing that we all have…personal photos, old birthday cards and various other mementos. These sentimental objects are usually stored away in a shoebox or a scrapbook, but don’t you think you would enjoy them much more if you could experience them everyday? So why not use them as a design element and put them on your wall? And the good news is that there are countless ways you can display your photos that are more inventive than just framing and hanging. Here are some ideas.

Tape It Up!
Your personal photos are just that…personal and so its ok to treat them a little sentimentally. By skipping the formality of framing and taping up images in an informal arrangement, you are giving the photos a very comfortable and personal treatment.

Frame Them But Don’t Hang Them
Remember, these photos are of the people you love, so arrange them informally and it will have a warmer effect then if you hang them symmetrically in matching frames. It’s ok for the photos to look a little cluttered as long as it is a sweet and sentimental clutter. Think of your grandma’s shelf and all her old photos…that’s what we are going for! You could arrange framed images on a table top or you could use picture ledge wall shelves like the ones pictured below. West Elm sells these for $35- $55.

Forget What I Just Said
Ok, remember how I just said this: “it will have a warmer effect then if you hang them symmetrically in matching frames”? Well, I don’t mean to be disingenuous, but here is an idea from the late great Domino that does just that. What’s so great about this idea is that the frames are the IKEA RAM frames that cost $1.99 for a 3 pack. Cheap and cool! Awesome!